Nikon D5200 added to our studio comparison database

We've added the Nikon D5200 to our database of studio comparison images. We're in the process of running a production D5200 through our studio tests, so wanted to present the results of our standard test scene. These test shots are also available from other reviews and the standalone tool, which can be accessed via the 'Review Comparison Tool' link in the Reviews menu on any page of the site. We'll be adding a complete set of studio and real-world sample images to our previously-published preview in the coming days, but in the meantime, click the link below to see how the D5200 stacks up to the competition in terms of JPEG and RAW image quality.

Our comparison tool allows you to compare our standard test scene at a variety of camera settings. First select a primary camera from the pull-down list in the gray central panel, then select the camera(s) you’d like to compare it to. Changing the ISO or image mode at the top of the page will affect all the selected cameras. Changing either parameter immediately above one of the zoomed-in previews affects only that specific camera. Click on the image below to open the comparison tool interface (opens in a new window).

Comments

The E-M5 jpegs are better than than the D5200 jpegs in the comparison tool.

I am skeptical that the D5200 can do as well as any m43 camera. Since you are "sure", here is how you can prove it: 1) Download the D5200 raw samples from the comparison tool, 2) make whatever adjustments you would like in Photoshop, documenting the steps so that people can repeat what you did and verify the results, and 3) post the improved jpegs from the D5200, showing that they are better than what you can get out of the E-M5 at stock settings.

No, unfortunately, you still lose because the jpegs of the E-M5 in the comparison tool are better than the jpegs of the D5200. Facts trump trolls.

Of course, you did say that a "competent Nikon JPEG menu adjuster" was needed to get the best out of the D5200. Could it be that you are not that person? Please, illuminate us. We are all waiting to see the wonderful work that you get out of the D5200 after spending hours in front of the computer, which won't even measure up to OOC jpegs from the E-M5

That wouldn't end all argument, because the E-M5 images were made with the 50 f/2.0 macro, one of the sharpest lenses ever made, while the D5200 used a lens that can't resolve well in the corners. So the comparisons are apples and oranges.

That's a good point, and I own the 50mm 2.0. But how much would a similar lens cost for the D5200? The 50mm is around $300, and does macro in addition to being extremely sharp. You can see detail on the watch that the Nikon lens missed. Look at the 1 hand, for example, with the D5200 and the E-M5.

I'm not down on the D5200. It looks like a great camera. I own Nikon legacy lenses which I use with an adapter on m43, and I've been toying with the idea of getting a Nikon DSLR. But I agree with the people who say that you're better off with a D7000. The IQ difference isn't there between the D5200 or D7000 and m43, at least in my opinion, so the reason to go with a DSLR is handling. That's where the D7000 is exceptional, as I understand it.

Yes, I agree. As you say, D7000 may be better because of handling. I do think one possibly great application of the D5200 is for birding. 24MP will crop well and there is the Nikon 300 f/4...I said something about that here a couple of days ago.

it shouldn't be a problem to process D5200's image to the cheaping looking of the OM-D's.

we don't have a 50/2 equivalent for APS-C (which should be about 64mm f/2.6). but we have loads of good lenses around 100m for the 35mm-format. though we don't have now a popular 100mm f/4 to compete with 50mm f/2 head-to-head, we have many f/2.8's that are twice more valuable than 50mm f/2, which is very easy to make as a piece of cake.

In the hands of a competent Nikon JPEG menu adjuster, combined with someone who can edit JPEGs to perfection, while using a sharp quality lens (Nikon 17-55 or 16-85 comes to mind), I'm SURE results coming out of the Nikon 5200's sensor will render images that are superior to anything in the 4/3s format, or anything coming out of Canon's current APS-C camp. I know this because I've been shootin JPEG magazine covers with Nikon cameras for several years now (samples on my MM page). Listen to the reviewers at DPReview & DXOMark... for they have no reason to lie to you concerning the performance of this camera & sensor. They are time-tested, proficient camera & sensor evaluators, and are NOT paid by Nikon to fabricate results. I've purchased several cameras based on their reviews, and have yet to be dissapointed with any past purchase (current owner of D600). It's my opinion that those wishin to find fault in their testings are merely fanboys of another camera manufacturer.

Well stated Gary. I agree with your points, as I've owned both m4/3 (Panasonic G2 and Panny 20mm) as well as the Nikon D5200 with 16-85 and 35mm Nikkors. While the OM-D (with good Olympus glass like the 60 macro or 75) does deliver sharp results, with equally high-quality optics like the Micro-Nikkors 60 or 105, I would bet that the D5200 would trump the OM-D overall image quality, just by virtue of sensor size and processing engine. Thanks, Steve

Are these piecemeal additions to previews a sort of Beta Testing program for reader impressions, helping to craft the conclusions and impressions on various pages when a "review" comes out (previews having started about 2 months ago)?

If you bump up the default sharpness of the D5200 or sharpen in post processing, you get the exact same oversharpened look of the E-M5. At base ISO, because any higher ISO clearly shows the (albeit small) disadvantage of a smaller sensor.

A fine camera, the E-M5 and I have a m3/4 body myself. But don't talk rubbish.

Interesting, that the E-M5 is oversharpened to your taste. That's a valid point of view, but most reviews of the E-M5's IQ use words like excellent, sensational, etc.

I also fail to see how sharpening the D5200's images would improve the colors. The E-M5 jpegs have better colors and contrast. Again, I encourage anybody reading this thread to look at the jpegs for themselves in the comparison tool. The difference is clear.

Just curious. You've stated several times that "jpegs don't matter" or something along those lines. It is obvious to me that the jpegs from the E-M5 are much better than the jpegs from this camera. I encourage anybody to compare the jpegs from the D5200 to the E-M5, starting at base ISO.

There have been several threads in the past here where some pro shooters have weighed in and expressed their preference for jpegs. Not the kind of shooters who spend all day taking 3 landscape shots, but wedding shooters, for example, or sports shooters, or other types of documentary shooters, who take a lot of shots and don't have time to process raw.

I have no doubt that some wedding shooters, etc. prefer raw, but is it accurate for you to say that raw is all that matters, jpegs don't matter, etc.? That isn't my belief, and it isn't the belief of many professional shooters.

Obviously, I can't answer for someone else, but I think he meant that out-of-camera JPEGs don't matter if you want to compare the sensor performance of different cameras. I don't think he meant to imply that shooting JPEG could never be a valid option under any circumstances.

All right, that explanation makes sense. I'm a little lost with the esoterics of sensor performance, since the fine distinctions that people are attempting to draw here don't seem to make much difference at all in the real world. YMMV.

I agree that the differences between cameras that are shown by DxOMark and other testing sites, often don't translate into large differences in real world use. I certainly wouldn't buy a new camera solely on the basis of a sensor test.But a camera that has better noise performance and dynamic range typically gives you more leeway in post-processing, if that's your cup of tea.

And from a purely technological, as opposed to photographic/artistic, standpoint, it's interesting to measure, benchmark and analyze sensor performance, for those of us that are so inclined.

Hey, I'm all about science and statistics. Well, not really, but I've certainly had enough training in working with numbers.

The D5200 camera looks like a fine camera, and I'm sure it will take fantastic pictures for many people.

Nevertheless, the IQ difference between the D5200 and the best m43 cameras is small, and the D5200 appears to lose to the E-M5 in base ISO jpegs, which is what I tend to shoot. Isn't that what most people tend to shoot? I mean, cameras capture light, and--Surprise!--we tend to use them when the light is good. If I were advocating for a camera like this, I would focus on the performance aspect. I've shot with m43 for a while now, and I do miss the performance of a DSLR from time to time. But the IQ "advantage"? Not really. It isn't there, at least from what I can tell after looking at thousands of shots.

While I prefer to shoot RAW, jpg performance is as useful as anything to compare. I make use of JPGs at family events or other occasions where I might take a lot of shots at once, and be unlikely to want to print them large. JPGs have a lot of detail if you are only going to be using them for web use or small prints.

I agree with BobBarber - I see little advantage to the D5200 over a MFT camera for what I use it for. Even if it is better at an absolute level - the real question is if that translates into any difference in my photography. The ability to carry a small, lightweight kit with me trumps absolute image quality - but we all have to evaluate and weigh the trade-offs and make our own decisions...

While the performance of the D5200 is very good in low light compared to previous APSC, one has to weight the other body factors and overall weight with zoom lens as a carry around all day camera. Compare the EM5 with 45-150mm and primes/small zooms and compare to D5200 with 55-300mm and primes/small zooms. Huge difference in the carry along bag. I have the 55-300mm Nikon lens and 14-150mm Olympus (and previously 45-200mm Panasonic) and huge difference in these Apsc vs. m43 lens sizes. Despite smaller body for Nikon than a D7000, much more portable EM5 with variety of lens. Image quality of 2 cameras is debatable and close anyway.

Same argument for D7000..maybe the big pile of megapixels and (i presume) better dynamic range and video is in the D5200's favor. Also remember a lot of buyers will only buy the latest/newest..sad but true.

Well, as a former (mostly happy) Pentax K-5 user, I did just that very recently...switching over to Nikon, for several reasons, i.e., higher resolution sensor, robust electronics, and the vast Nikon System. While I was quite pleased with the superb Pentax FA/DA * and Limited optics, and the build quality and ergonomics of the K-5, I found that the electronics of the K-5 sometimes was a bit "flakey". For example, when shooting a still life of mariachi band figurines, my K-5 would sometimes switch focus point just prior to exposure, as if I had face detection on and physically selected another face in the group (which I did not). But post processing showed the sharpest point of the image, and it wasn't the point I had manually selected. This happened more than once, under varying lighting conditions. Also, the K-5 required a fair amount of AF Micro-Adjustment for several lenses, to compensate for some back focus issues. So far, the Nikon D5200 is rendering quite sharp images consistently, which is good, since there is no provision for correcting potential back/front focus issues, just overall Sharpness. Other than those issues, I loved the Pentax System! FYI, if anyone needs a new Metz 56AF-2 flash (with 4 Sanyo EneLoops) for Pentax, please drop me a line. Thanks.

I bet the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 would have achieved the best overall scores... thats probably the reason why DXO never got around to actually reviewing that particular camera...

DXO seems to fabricate a bunch of numbers and then allocate them accordingly... One would image they're the gospel of truth as far as sensor testing goes... At least most other camera review websites provide studio or real world samples to compare side by side whilst formulating a final score...

DxOMark don't fabricate their numbers, but they are based on analysis of the RAW files before demosaicing, i.e. before being converted to an RGB image (eg. JPEG or TIFF). That's why they don't provide any sample images.

And why on earth would they ignore a camera because they think it would achieve the best score? Why would they care which camera sits at the top of the list?

DxO make their sensor performance tests as part of the process of adding support for the cameras in DxO Optics Pro, and currently they don't support non-Bayer sensors.Of course, they could test the X-Pro1/X-E1, since they don't demosaic the files anyway, but it seems that they don't bother testing cameras, if they don't plan to add them to their RAW converter.

I suppose 24 MP is great, provided you can get a good quality lenses.Nikon bundled lens 18-55/105/135/200/300 I think would be sucks at DX 24 MP,Eventhough they're may be quite good and close to great at 13.5MP and 6MP.

Logic would be, Pro Users would buy it just as tools for digitizing/capturing image for very large prints that they always wanted with their pro lenses.

Average Joe/Amateurs would learn by hard that they can't get 24MP goodness with standard cheap lenses and would begin to invest in good lenses & learning techniques to get better/sharper images.

Noobies/Newbies will be wiser to stick superzoom lenses and set image size to 13.5MP or very crispy 6MP (provided they're using good standard lenskit from Nikon).

I agree. In RAW (which is all that matters), switch the to EM5, put the crop on the woman's face (next to the dime). At base ISO the D5200 is more detailed. Go up the ISO scale until ISO 6400. At ISO 6400, the lady's face is a mushy mess, while on the D5200 all the detail is still there.

That's the big difference in this they cameras. That's why DxOMark for low-light scored:

D5200 1284 ISOEM5 826 ISO

826 ISO is less than a Nikon D5000 from 6 years ago score in the low-light ISO test.

Pinpointed pixel peeping, I can do that too. If you look at the Martini bottle the D5200 dissapoints. I've never seen so much CA for a prime stopped down to f8. You can download the RAWS and see for almost any other combination of gear the Lightroom CA fix barely makes any difference...but boy it makes a huge difference here. Somewhat dissapointing since it is a studio shot stopped down to f8.To be honest the narrow aperture modern sensor pixel peeping is so marginal in final IQ in many real-world situations. What is interesting however is given the poor CA I see at f8, I'm very sure both the Canon and Nikon 50mm's on APS-C will dissapoint at wide aperture compared to the Oly 45mm 1.8. And wide-aperture lens performances varies far more than narrow aperture studio shot tests. This is often the most glossed over performance facet of Nikon measurebaters is in fact wide-open lens performance or the belief software can fix all CA.

Looking at certain lens reviews, it appears the 50mm 1.4G gets worse CA as it stops down and is already > 1 px width on a 24MP FF. So shoving the 24 MPs onto the 1.5 crop makes the CA levels obvious. And finally there is really strange aliasing artifacts everywhere in the RAW which the Nikon jpeg engine here seems ready to smooth. Does Adobe RAW Converter need a fix here or does it really have crazy moire/alias issues all over? But these are not real issues for any hand-held shooter. Only thing I care about is how precise the AF is and if the buffer can handle RAW sizes previously pushed by semi-pro FF cameras. Olympus can technically push out files 2x as fast since they are 2x smaller at high ISO...but they are not subjectively 2x worse to me.

Please compare ISO 1600 D300s:www.tomx.eu/Testy/NikonD300s_ISO1600.jpgand the same resolution from D5200:www.tomx.eu/Testy/NikonD5200_ISO1600_12MPx.jpgAnd do it with OM-D (ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 and make the average) too.

On the RAW version of the D5200, I noticed two things, jagged edges in the brush airs at left and the chess squares at top right not very well defined compared to other cameras! But, globally I still like the results.

From base ISO up to 1600 (i.e., the range that encompasses pretty much all my shooting), there doesn't appear to be any advantage at all over the 16MP micro four thirds cameras. If anything the m4/3 offerings appear to be resolving more. I can only surmise that the 5200 is employing stronger NR at low ISO settings.

Focus on the monarch woman (or whoever that is on the money note near the dime) in RAW (raw is all that counts). And it's clear to see the D5200 is out-resolving any other the m43 and 16 mp APS-C cameras.

And as you go up the ISO scale, the detail stay in tact on the D5200. Some of the others including the EM5 get mushy at ISO 3200-6400.

It is amusing that marike6 spends so much time and effort looking for some aspect or potion of the test image in which the D5200 is better than the OMD with it's much smaller and older sensor. Simply the fact that a pro needs to search so hard through only RAW files to justify that it can even come close to the OMD means that it is irrelavent to 99% of users.

My D300 with this amazing DX sensor would be outstanding camera. Please compare ISO 1600 D300s:www.tomx.eu/Testy/NikonD300s_ISO1600.jpgand the same resolution from D5200:www.tomx.eu/Testy/NikonD5200_ISO1600_12MPx.jpg

Please take OMD ISO 1600 and 3200 (the same shutter speed is somewhere between them) and show me the 12 MPx picture a compare it!!!!

What the HECK are you guys talking about the "great IQ?!? You obviosly have NOT actually used the camparison tool and still you blather on in complete ignorance. Do the comparison before speculating how great it is (isn't).

Both the NEX-7 (much older) and the OMD EM5 (much smaller sensor and far fewer pixels) have at least as much detail and far LESS noise than the D5200 at 6400 ISO.

Go ahead, burry your head in the sand. It just makes you look like fools. Either you work for Nikon or you are completely blind.

At ISO 3200 or 6400, I don't think so. There are still parts of the E-M5 jpegs that look better at those ISOs, but also parts of the D5200 jpegs that look better. Raw goes to the D5200, by a little bit. The Olympus picks up detail that the D5200 misses, but has chunkier noise.

Anyway, I prefer to shoot at base ISO, and the Olympus wins there. I have no problem imitating almost perfectly Panasonic's jpeg engine in software, starting with raw files, but I was never able to do what Olympus's jpeg engine did.

Please note that exposure values. Eg., ISO1600, the Oly was 1/400s and F/6.3. The Nikon was 1/500s and F/8. That's a full stop difference. If you were shooting in low light, the Oly would either need longer shutter times or higher ISO's just to get the same exposure. Try comparing ISO3200 on the OMD with ISO1600 on the Nikon for a apples-to-apples comparison. Pretty clear the Nikon is doing better by about 1 stop. The difference in sensor would suggest 0.8 stop difference, so Nikon did a good job of getting even more than one should expect just due to sensor size.

I must agree Oly ISO is a joke. Comparing two camera noise at the same ISO is also a joke. DPReview ISO compare tool is also a joke. 4/3 sensor is better than APS-C and APS-C is better than full frame is also a joke.

JPEGs? That's what you guys are arguing about? Olympus used to have decent JPEGs. EM5 changed all that. Look at one at 100%. NR and artifacts make it hard to imagine anyone would use them over the ORF files. Download an X-Pro1 JPEG.

As far as fools, go ahead an compare some real images from the D7000, D5200, K5, X-Pro1 with the EM5 images. ALL of these APS-C cameras have cleaner images at ALL ISOs, and better color depth. DR? Forget it. EM5 has about as much DR as a P&S like the RX100. It's a bit better IQ than the Panasonic GX1, nothing more. I have to laugh at all the FF vs EM-5 comparisons I read on the m43 forums. FF? m43 has not managed (nor wil it ever) to match APS-C performance, and m43 fanboys want to start threads with comparisons against the 5D3 and D800??? That's alternate reality stuff. Seeing what you want to see, DxOMark conspiracy theories, the whole nine years. I guess when you drop the kind of cash m43 users do on their gear they want to believe.

Mike, can you be more specific on this claim of more detail? Are you comparing similar lenses and similar shooting conditions? Are you talking about high ISO or low ISO or is it just a general impression?

Let be serious here. Ok I look at the sample and the RAW file from the OLY does look a tiny bit worse than the 5200 but very minimal. Knowing that the sensor from 5200 is bigger, that's tiny difference is not enough to make a difference even in big prints.

Marike seems to own a Pana and desperately try to down play EM5. Why do you bring K5, X-Pro 1 and all other things into this discussion? The original comment is about 5200 vs EM5 sensor. Moreover, even though X-Pro 1 sensor is better, you will have a hard time to focus with it (ha ha EM5 focus OWN).

On the watch in the lower right-hand corner in the studio comparison image, are there supposed to be two white lines where the numeral 1 should be, or only one?

Both the OMD E-M5 and Panasonic GH2 show two lines there. The D5200 shows one line there.

Which is it?

If this is another camera-lens combo that fades out towards the edge of the image, then the 24 megapixels don't give much of an advantage, at least not without expensive glass. I'm assuming that the studio comparison was taken with good glass. I didn't check.

err Yes. They have two studio setups, which are absolutely identical except for those watches. Or perhaps...

it is the same physical studio scene and maybe a few of the elements have (been accidently) moved slightly after some of those older studio test shots were taken, e.g. look at the staples and some of the feathers in the shots from older and newer cameras.

My money is on the light hitting the (same) watch face at a slightly different angle to before.

It's the same watch. The studio scene has been moved though - once across the Atlantic, and once from our old studio in seattle to a new space. So some scene elements may have shifted slightly. We try very hard to minimise this, but it's impossible to completely 'freeze' a 3D setup like this.

"If this is another camera-lens combo that fades out towards the edge of the image, then the 24 megapixels don't give much of an advantage, at least not without expensive glass. I'm assuming that the studio comparison was taken with good glass. I didn't check."

Bobbarber you make a good point about camera-lens comparisons. The camera-lens combo is producing misleading results when comparing D5200 with the OMD E-M5. The Oly images used the 50 f/2.0 macro which is one of the sharpest lenses by any manufacturer. The D5200 uses the 50 f/1.4 G which has problems in the corners. Comparisons are very similar near the center of the images but the chessboards in the corners show how much weaker the Nikon lens is. In fact, the Oly lens would have been even sharper at f/4.0 than these shot at f/6.3. Source: SLR Gear comparison charts.

The sensor on the OMD is only 2/3 the size and 2/3 the MP and still far out performs this camera. The OMD has at least as much detail, despite the lower pixel count, and far less noise, especially at high ISO. Turned them both up to 6400 ISO and the D5200 looks terrible compared to the OMD.

So for all those people that need the Nikon badge and the 24MP sticker to impress, knock yourself out.

Pretty sad actually that Nikon can't do better with a much larger sensor and so many more pixels.

Do not look at JPEG. Look at RAW and yu will see D5200 is much better. And you can see at DxOMark.com that OMD ISO is one stop slower. OMD ISO 200 is ISO 100 and OMD ISO 3200 is really ISO 1600. D5200 is only about one third stop slower in comparison to right ISO. D5200 in RAW and comparable shutter time one EV better. JPEGs are tragedy from both, do not care about JPEG here.

As far as glass, like all F-mount cameras, the D5200 gives the user more lens choices than probably any other mount including EF mount.

And like other high resolution cameras, i.e., D800, D600, 5D3, NEX7 and A99, a mediocre lens on the D5200 will out resolve the same lens on a lower resolution camera. Defects and aberrations may be more apparent at 100%, but the resolving power of a given D5200/lens combo will be greater.

The image quality is very good for APSC, however D600 and even D700 is better at low light as FF should be for noise. Try comparing samples at 6400 iso and 3200 iso on these 3 cameras to see my point (in raw and jpeg). However the D5200 sensor is much better than my D300s, so I would like to see it in an upcoming D7200 or D400 camera with better body features with better, bigger OVF, more dedicated buttons etc.

When I select the J1 in the comparison tool and set to RAW and ISO 1600, I see about the same noise. The J1 has more chroma noise and the 5200 has much more detail, but overall, noise is about the same.

DXO has always been a bit of a mystery to me, especially their lens grading. Show me the images. That's all I need.

The difference is that DXO down samples images to 8MP, which isn't far off the V1's native res, where the D5200 is downsampled to 1/3 resolution - at 1:1 pixel size you mightn't see that much of a difference, especially as the pixel size isn't that much different either, but downsampled there would be a much more striking difference.

It was like when DPR compared images from the A77 to the A55 - at 1:1 the A77 looked a lot noisier. But downsampled to the same 16MP they actually looked pretty similar.

Also, DxOMark analyzes the RAW file before demosaicing, whereas the "RAW images" you see in comparisons on DPR and other sites are, of course, JPEGs developed from RAW with default settings. These tell you as little (or much) about the capability of the sensor as the out-of-camera JPEGs do.If the comparison tool shows little difference between D5200 and J1 (which is arguable, depending on what you look for in the images), it only means that the default ACR settings give similar results.

Which is more relevant to the photographer, DxOs numbers or DPRs comparison images, really depends on how much post-processing you intend to do.

The D300s scored a DxOMark Low-Light ISO score of 787 iso while the D5200 scores 1284 so nice to know how much better than last generation APSC Nikon. Please Nikon, upgrade into a D400 and serious shooters will buy. The EM5 scored 826 iso for low light (see on DXOmark website) which I think is excellent for m43 and the Olympus Jpeg engine does wonders with the rest of the noise and sharpness for decent low light quality. If you put the latest sensor into a rugged pro D400 a lot of serious prosumers will not mind a bit more camera weight for superior performance overall. Do not give us a D600 lower spec body and AF in D400.

I kind of wish they would sell this camera in a bundle with both the 18-105 lens and the 35mm F1.8. Even if they charged something like $1,100 for it, you have a versatile travel zoom and a fixed prime lens which will make better use of the 24MP resolution.

I must say I am pleasantly suprized of the IQ of the D5200.. This would be a great addition to My D800E for my wife to use.. Its light and the image quality is good. I would swap the kit lens with the 16-85 so I wouldn't feel bad in using it myself. Nice camera to take with one lens and maybe small sb-400 flash on top..

For most users the EM5 delivers more pleasing photos without pp.For RAW shooters it's a different story. In normal light I'm still happy with my old D50, but when the time comes to buy a new camera I will switch to M43 thanks to Olympus' jpeg magic and the nice lenses available. Nikon shows nothing here that would sway ME to stay with them.

Have an E-M5 and it's a different class of camera, more comparable to the D7000 given its weathersealed alloy body and dual control wheels, and then throw in 5-axis IBIS and 9 fps shooting. And it's priced commensurately.

The D5200 looks to be a quality small and light mid-level body, and the 24 MP would be nice for cropping for birding, although you pay a penalty in processing speed and image storage. What turns me off is Nikon's crippling it by leaving out a built-in motor for AF of all Nikon SLR lenses and having a tiny viewfinder. Many would rather pay a bit more to remedy these rather than making a $500 leap to the bulkier/heavier D7000.

I'm not sure which users those would be, one look at the 17 1.8 / EM5 gallery vs any good D7000 or X-Pro1 set of imagesshow that the EM5 simply doesn't match the better APS-C cameras, i.e. NEX7, K5, D5200, X-E1. The EM5 does not compare favorably with any of these cameras for IQ. Unless users like the grainier base ISO images, or weaker DR and color depth I can't imagine anyone would choose the m43 cameras for IQ.

I'm an m43 user, and IQ improves with each generation of cameras. But the smaller format will never equal the best of APS-C. Sorry to be so blunt.

Yeah right. I still laugh when i see a NEX. Like a giant milk bottle stuck on an iPhone, with similar optical properties.

By kewlguy (1 hour ago)Agreed, marike6. I used to have both 4/3 and m4/3. Sold them because I still prefer the outputs from my Canon and Nikon. If one needs small mirrorless, NEX is a good start over m4/3.

some guys below said m43 is incomparable with APS-C cameras refering to some DP test shots of a recent Oly glass.I am not sure what happened to those pictures but there are tons of test samples on the net to think otherwise. Moreover, you guys can just use directly the studio comparison too with the d5200 samples and switch on the OMD and then set up the ISOat 6400 level-then you will see how the Nikon sensor is "better" than the Oly. You need to accept that there are some other cameras out there which are just better or at least as good as Nikon and some of them come from m43 community.

Better DR, high ISO, colors, DOF control, way better AF tracking, way more lenses at far cheaper prices. m43 cameras are smaller I'll give you that. But most men I know don't exactly have problems handling a 1 LB camera.

Like I said, I did use quite an extensive system of m4/3, including EM5. Sorry, the details are not up to the FF cameras with good lenses. It's reality - esp the low light details. Horses for courses, sure. I'm not saying m4/3 is bad, but it's not as good as the best APS-C system, still. NEX might be weird looking, but the sensor is better than the best m4/3 sensor currently available. The Oly defenders need to have some reality check, somehow.

You seem to have fallen for the trap of believing what you are told by a company who's interests you know nothing about, rather than your eyes. Remember the ridiculous delay from DXO re the EM5. They seemed panicked by the real results everyone else discovered for THEMSELVES.

Jpeg's are classic Nikons. A deliberate choice of noise control over detail. Check the queen @ 800 and 1600. not really better or worse, but a clear choice. Really good images to compare jpeg engine behavior, (not performance).

D5200 surely has marginally better noise performance than D5100, but its output is visibly softer than D5100 or T4i. It could be because of the AA filter or it could be because of Nikon's implementation of higher DR sensors where shadows appear lighter and hence lacking contrast and all colors appear pale. Am I missing something?

I was due for an upgrade so I purchased the D5200 which I received about 5 days ago. I am using it in my studio for small scale product photography. One very nice feature is that when I upgraded my Nikon Camera Control Pro to the latest version, I can not only capture the photos, but very nice HD video tethered direct to the desktop in Live View mode.

Noise performance is good, but I wished D5200 has the crispness of D5100/T4i. It might be the lens, though. Despite being a beginner DSLR, one will need pro glasses to fully utilize the high resolution sensor.

From the RAW file studio shot I downloaded. I confirm here what I observed from the samples provided on Nikon's web site in November 2012 : this is a winner for image quality, details and color neutrality, considering it's advanced amateur category. No competition here!

I have been using Canon 20D, 30D, 40D, Nikon D300 and D200, and the D5200 hold it's place here very well. For sure we don't have all the fancy buttons helping to get things faster that we find on more expansive versions. The Nikon D5200 is a lot more than adequate for a lot of consumers.

I am choosing between the D5200 and the D7000. In the comparison, I find the D5200 has better image quality and better color than the D7000. Select mickey mouse in the picture and you can see that the red is brighter and the black colormuch darker. The left side of my brain is in agreement with the right side of my brain that the D5200 is the right camera to pick aside from the smaller size compared to the D7000 as soon as I get my tax refund, that is.

I am in the same boat. I have the D5100 and like it, except that I also own an Olympus E-PM1 and it has 35 AF points to the 11 of the D5100. That makes me think the D7000 would be a good upgrade in that regard, as it has the same sensor & tons of buttons etc as well as 39 AF points, but when I've pondered upgrades before I went for newer sensor technology vs a better body in the same sensor. That's why I sold my D200 for a D5000, and upgraded the D5000 to the D5100 vs the D90. My main concern is the cost of upgrading other things: if the 18-105mm VR I use would be taxed by a 24mp sensor, if Lightroom 3.5 would no longer work with the RAW files, and if my PC couldn't handle 24mp files to start with.

Also, the D3200's sensor, to me, was a disappointment vs the D5100, the D5200 sensor seems to be better.

The E-PM1 doesn't have PDAF so it's bit of a different animal. I don't have any problems with the 11 point "old fashioned" AF on the D5100 but I understand the desire to have more points. I can't see buying the D5200 over the D7000 though in any circumstances though. I still prefer the Sony sensor over this Toshiba so that slants things. I'm interested in that 20MP Sony sensor rumored to be out soon though. I don't want the MP, but I'm interested to see it's performance.

You should try to handle both bodies. The first time I purchased the D7000, I actually went down to B&H to buy the D5100, but when I saw the large, bright 100% finder of the D7000, I just couldn't pass it up. A good VF makes the shooting experience so much nicer. D7000 also has two command dials (one right underneath the shutter button) to the D5200's one.

That said, I'm sure I could work with the D5200, but the IQ is so close between the two cameras I wouldn't let it be the deciding factor.

These IQ tests are mostly for color rendition and quality in general and not for sharpness as ive understood? Because i will not buy the fact that my D3100 beats the Leica M9 in sharpness am i right? Sorry for the offtopic question, i thought it better than to start a thread about it.

M9 uses CCD which has no AA filter - a combo you'll want for sharpness and resolution at the cost of moire. I think D5200 should do the same, no AA filter as its 24MP sensor has very small pixel pitch already and make it easy on the lenses to achieve acceptable sharpness.

There is still truth to it. I mean, technology is moving and with a lower pixel count you still get better noise performance. Yet, noise performance is not people use/value all the time and with noise reduction, it becomes not a problem to most. With a MP count increase,there is a sense of upgrade to some people.

Anyway, for my use, I would need that lower MP count for RAW files that has better quality for instances where I have underexposed images intentionally and not.

There are no myths but some laws of physics that cannot be infringed.DXOmark results are clear : bigger sensors are ALWAYS better than small ones for the SAME pixel count when build with then SAME technology.Given the SAME SENSOR TECHNOLOGY, the bigger the photosite the more light (or photons) will be collected, resulting in a greater signal/noise ratio. And greater dynamic range too, because the photosite can collect a greater number of photons before being saturated. More pixels for same sensor size = more noise = less dynamic range !Year after year technology improves so it is possible to put more pixels on the same sensor size. At the same time, improvements also allow to increase the signal/noise ratio for the same pixel size. The consequence is that a today 24MP APS-C sensor has a great chance to be less noisy than a 12MP APS-C sensor of yesterday. But if a 12MP APS-C sensor is build with today's technology, it will have a better signal/noise ratio then the 24MP one.

So does it worth having a 12MP APS-C sensor with today's technology rather than a 24MP APS-C sensor for a better signal/noise ratio if you do not need 24MP ?IMHO, I think it does not. 24MP is more versatile. If you need high-res, you have it. If you do not need it, you can downsize your image. In-camera if you are too lazy/busy or want to save memory card space, or in post-processing. If the downsize algorithm is good a 12MP picture downsized from 24MP will not be much noisy than the full-res picture from the 12MP sensor : combining pixels averages the noise. Plus it will be SHARPER.The reason is the anti-alias filter cut-off frequency is higher on the 24MP pixel sensor... So it's more or less like having a 12MP sensor without an anti-alias filter.

more megapixels is useless is mainly true for p&s camera's The lens simply cannot out resolve the sensor and there is less available light. There is no p&s 1/2.23" with more than 10mp of true resolution. On aps-c there is room, depending on the lenses you use. ISO performance is still also improving, so the sweet spot (resolution vs noise) is moving up. Whether it is usefull to go beyond 24mp? Probably only on high end aps-c dslrs and ilc systems, since the demands on glass will continue to increase.

IQ looks fantastic. And if you go by DxOMark, the D5200 is using quite possibly the best performing crop sensor in the world right now. Who knew that Toshiba was so skilled as manufacturing sensors?

One thing is odd is when you switch to the K-5IIs in the Studio Test, it almost looks like ACR Chroma NR was left on, as at ISO 6400 it's dramatically cleaner than the D5200. Yet, on DxOMark the D5200 manages 1284 ISO score to the K-5IIs's 1208 ISO Low-Light (Sports) Score.

Anyway, wonderful IQ, and since I'm in need of a small DX body for my new 70-200 f4 VR, this camera definitely on my short list. Thanks guys.

As far as Toshiba, I wish they made a 1" sensor that Nikon could use for the N1, to get performance up to the RX100 level in some regards. The Aptina sensor has very good IQ, the Sony 1" has excellent IQ.

Nikon fanboys shouted all these years the advantage of lifting shadows like crazy in post, and argued that this is the single most important thing and Nikon beats them all. Now that the D5200 is rubish at that, I hear no word. Talking about blind fanboyism

I kind of want to agree with you Marike6 about Toshiba and N1. But I like Aptina output. DXO Mark information has limited uses for me. I like: http://www.techradar.com/ The do a good job using DXO Analyzer, with Raw, TIFF, and JPG to give a broader idea of general performance. I also like: http://www.sensorgen.infoAnd it usually comes down to something secondary in requirement for a camera that makes the difference for me.

If people want to argue that if you lift shadows some absurd amount like 8 EV as someone on the DX Forum was suggesting produces banding in the D5200, I'd submit that ANY sensor, including the D800 will have negative side effects to such a dramatic EV push in LR.

I love the 16 mp Exmor but all things being equal I'll take the high resolution, DR and low-light any day.

Don't read too much into the minor differences like that, they are all within margin of error of DxOMark (obviously, k-5, d5100 and d7000 use the same sensor, as well as Sony A57, A65, NEX-5N, NEX-C3 etc etc).

Re lifting shadows, for any dcent realistic lifting the D5200 is on pair with the D7000, the champion there for APS-C files. Only for extreme 5+stop compensation you may see slight lines, not really banding like one sees in Canon files. Checking RAW values, only when they reach below 5, in all values, you get issues, That's in the last 2 bits, where all the noise is. The D7000 will show slightly less issues there. The estimate is that you get 12EV of DR, RAW, very clean. Find another sensor that does much better. Most will do much worse.

@rob asnong"Because it is known that it is a Sony sensor outsourced by Sony to Toshiba in a long term relationship, probably because of capacity shortness due to the flood twintigjarig years ago."

Unless you're joking, got any sources for this? Known by who? Certainly not by Chipworks, who showed that the Toshiba sensor has a different pixel architecture than the Sony 24 Mp sensor, and has copper metallization as opposed to aluminium, which is used by Sony. The performance may be similar, but the tech is different.

Some people seemingly can't accept that there are other companies than Sony, that are capable of making great sensors. For years, Sony fanboys have refused to believe that not all Nikon sensors are Sony-made, and that some of them are in fact designed by Nikon and manufactured by Renesas. Why not look at the facts instead of spreading rumours? Chipworks have showed that Nikon now have four different sources of sensors: Renesas, Sony, Toshiba and Aptina (in Nikon 1).

"Why these super high megapixel sensors are better?" I'm thinking this could be a great "poor man's" birding rig. That is, less than $2000 in USA. Put a used "like new" 300 f/4 AF-S on this (about $1100) and crop 25% in post processing. The 6000X4000 sensor becomes 4500X3000 pixels, which is plenty for birding prints. Considering the APSC sensor's 1.5X crop factor this would be 450mm/.75=600mm full frame equivalent field of view. I'd probably crop even more than that. Plus the sensor's low light performance is great for this size sensor.

I usually downsize every picture I take when I develop RAWs. If I want to make JPEGs, I usually make cca. 3-4 MPx pictures. So I don´t care whether I downsize from 16 Mpx or 24 MPx; the bigger RAW files, the more space they take. But this is just my point of view.

I have to agree with you on the D5200 vs. D5100. If you're really looking closely, the D5200 is slightly better than the D5100 but not by much. Certainly not worth an upgrade from an image quality standpoint. But might be worthwhile for the performance boost.

For people lucky enough to own the very nice D5100 the upgrade may not be worthwhile. What percentage of potential buyers is that again? This is a very nice camera with exceptional image quality for the price, never a bad thing. Hard drive space isn't very expensive and you can always scale the images to whatever size you prefer. Or crop, if that is helpful.

Not arguing against the D5100/D7000 IQ or sensor, they are both as good as it gets. Just pointing out that when judging noise in high ISO images you need to scale the high res images down to the resolution of the other low mp cameras.

But yes, higher resolution cameras do require more storage space, but HDs are cheap, and if you start off working with a higher res file in post, you can crop more and still be left with a good size file to print. So it may seem like a move by vendors for the specs, but there are real advantages to the newer 24 and higher mp sensors.

I miss the times when a camera was made to be as good as can be. They were not digital though. And that's why I loved Olympus 4/3, even they entry level had all the ,semi or pro,, features, some of them not even in pro Canikon today

When was that, 1890? The major companies have been selling various classes of camera for a very long time. They offer more models than they once did, but there are more different technologies available than there were in film days. Choice is good.

So what is my choice for a decent sized but full featured DSLR ? I mean 2 control wheels, direct AF control, direct buttons for ISO WB insetead of stupid Print button, drive mode, pixel mapping without going to sevice, af fine tune. Olympus E-620 almost got it right, and was the second smallest dslr ever

@d3xmeister: I think the closest to your idea is a Pentax K-30: relatively small, but fully equipped camera (exactly following the philosophy you liked on Olympus: even entry-level camera deserves semi-pro or pro features like 100% pentaprism OVF or weather-sealing).

I couldn't agree more. What is this obsession Canon and Nikon have with only making large DSLRs fully-featured? It's one reason why mirrorless is growing, people want small, well-featured cameras, not just oversized ones. Well, I know I do!

Starting October 1st, Getty Images will no longer accept images in which the models have been Photoshopped to "look thinner or larger." The change was made due to a French law that requires disclosure of such images.

A court ruling our of Newton, Massachusetts has set an important legal precedent for drone pilots: federal drone laws will now trump local drone regulations in situations where the two are in conflict.

macOS High Sierra came out today, but if you use a Wacom tablet you need to wait a few weeks before you upgrade. According to Wacom, they won't have a compatible driver ready for you until "late October."

Vitec, the company that owns popular accessory maker Manfrotto, has just acquired JOBY and Lowepro for a cool $10.3 million in cash. The acquisition adds JOBY and Lowepro to Vitec's already sizable collection of camera gear brands.

A veteran photojournalist, Rick Wilking secured a spot in the path of totality for the August solar eclipse. While things didn't quite pan out as predicted, an unexpected subject in the sky and a quick reaction made for a once-in-a-lifetime shot.